Saints' Gregg Williams coaching career should be over

Pictures of the Ravens game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 17.

Kevin Cowherd

That sound you just heard was the door officially slamming on the coaching career of Gregg Williams, the former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator and current St. Louis Rams D-coordinator, who seems to see himself as some kind of headset-wearing mob boss, ordering "hits" on opposing players like he's John Gotti or something.

Where else can Williams get a coaching gig now?

The exercise yard at San Quentin? The gym at Leavenworth?

There's no way the NFL takes him back now, not after a damning documentary recording surfaced showing Williams, the key figure behind the Saints bounty scandal, advocating, among other things, head hits on a player with a previous concussion the (49ersKyle Williams) and a star quarterback (the 49ers Alex Smith.)

No reputable college will hire Gregg Williams, either. And forget him coaching on the high school level, too. What parent is going to want his or her kid playing for someone who thinks it's appropriate to target players for cheap shots and injuries?

In some ways, the documentary snippet is even more revealing of Williams' mad-dog mentality than the cash rewards he advocated for injuring other players.

There's the snarling "pep talk" he gives the Saints about what to do with the 49ers' Smith, when he (Williams) points to his own chin and says: "We hit (bleeping) Smith right here."

There's all the faux tough-guy rhetoric about "kill the head and the body will die" and this charming exhortation about what to do with 49ers running back Frank Gore: "We need to decide how many times we can beat Frank Gore's head."

Hey, Roger Goodell: get rid of this thug for good. Forget the year's suspension: ban him permanently.